Aufbau, Entwicklung und Genese der islamisch-orientalischen Stadt in Sowjet-Mittelasien

Abstract

The subdivision of cities into citadel (ark), inner city (sharistan), and outer city (rabad) is of fundamental importance for an understanding of the concept and the history of the Islamic-oriental city in Central Asia. Many medieval cities in Turan and Khorasan are characterized by this organization. In Khiwa and Herat we still find this pattern in a very distinct form. This study tries to prove that in contrast to the traditional idea of the structure of an Islamic oriental city, we have to proceed from the fact that the cities in Turan and Khorasan (Bukhara, Khiwa, Merv, Herat, Kandahar etc.) originally had a strictly geometric design (chess-board pattern with the main axes orientated after the points of the compass). According to archaeological research carried out at Merv we can proceed from the fact that this pattern was not imported by the Arabs in the seventh and eighth century, but was a general feature of the cities in this region at that time. Accordingly, the Islamic-oriental city of the early middle ages in Turan and Khorasan is the result of a further development or a structural change of an existing concept of town planning in that region. The historical roots of the pre-Arabian chess-board pattern of the shahristan may be found in the Sassanidian city on the one hand, and in the old Indian city of pre-Islamic times (Hindu architecture), on the other.